Welcome to the New Nerdist.com: A Message from Chris Hardwick

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Greetings, Nerdist folk! Welcome to a new chapter in the history of our wee site/entity/throbbing human mass/thing. I’m genuinely excited with the newest iteration of our digital content delivery that we are able to feed into your eye mouths, courtesy of a company called Something Massive.

You’ll notice the site has changed a bit — rebuilt from the ground up — and the new design gives us a little more freedom to navigate the content in super happy fun time ways. You’ll now notice a button for new content, in addition to a “trending” button if you just want to go with the crowd (no judgement! sometimes it’s quicker). The top nav has PODCASTS (obvious), VIDEO (we’ll be integrating MUCH more video on the site), STORE (merch coming soooooooon!), and a hamburger-looking expando-menu with more specific link sorting. Also, the sharing of articles is now easier, so please feel free to take advantage of that on your preferred social media platform.

Big one here —> FINALLY, our site looks good on mobile. In fact, we designed with mobile in mind first, and then ported that over to desktop, as opposed to the reverse. We hope you find it a cleaner, smoother experience than the free plug-in I used to use to get a “mobile version” of the site that rarely worked. We love doing shit on our phones or tablets, so pull that device out of the pocket near your naughty bits and enjoy our offerings on the go!

GRANDPA TALKS WISTFULLY TIME! I started nerdist.com in 2008 (strangely, nerdist.net was not available but all of the other extensions were) on Typepad. The next year I moved it to WordPress.com (Sorry Typepad! Keep sending those reminders that I haven’t renewed my blog with you! After all these years, it’d be weird not to get them every month) and subsequently to the wordpress.org framework, where it had stayed for four and a half years. Today we evolve from “turbo blog” to “actual magazine”. One of things I get the most excitement from is the mile markers of growth — it is, after all, my child (is that strange?). As a performer, it’s always tough to track your progress because you are essentially the product and you lack the POV of yourself, but Nerdist is that tangible thing that I can ACTUALLY watch get bigger and better. It means the world to me, and the community that continues to build around it blows me away. SIDENOTE! I just did six shows at Caroline’s Comedy Club in New York, and the management could not get over how sincerely nice my audiences were. Something that I’m most proud of is that fact that Nerdist, in all its forms, seems to attract good people. Few persons/entities/deities have an audience that they would actually hang out with, and I can honestly say that I do (cue “awwwwwwww,” as baby hamsters give each other tiny kisses). For that, I cannot thank you enough for being here for and continuing to support us.

In the Typepad and early WordPress days, I did everything myself. It was fun, rewarding and a lot of work, but also limiting. I always intended to bring other voices on board so there would be perspectives other than mine, not just aggregating nerd-centric Web gems but also CREATING them as well BREAKING news in our pop culture spheres (Entertainment, Science, Gaming, Tech, Music, Comedy). That time is now just beginning, and I have to thank Brian Walton (our Editor in Chief), Perry Michael Simon (my first editor, still contributor and strategist), and all of the brilliant and sweet minds who have joined since. I really want this to be a source for cool stuff, inspiration and positivity to be your pal while guiding you through all of the things that are hopefully relevant to your interests. Be it Nerdist News (you’re CRUSHING it, Chobot), podcasts, other videos, comedy, live events, .com stuff, or television, I’m very excited about where we can all go together next, and I welcome your QUEMMENTS (remember those?) in the text fields at the bottom of the page. This is, after all, your home too.

We might have a few bugs here and there (that I imagine look like the grid bugs from Tron) as we settle into the new site, so, please, don’t get frustrated with us! We’re always doing our best, and we’ll fix it. WE’LL FIX IT ALL. Our goal is to give you the best experience possible (with everything we do), not to bum you out specifically, so never forget that! There will be more additions to functionality in the coming weeks both site-wise and people-wise, so check back as much as damn possible so you know I’m truthin’ you. Again, I thank you for your time and I hereby officially open the gilded new gates to this shiny updated nerd factory — I am your host, Willy Wanker.

when the merch comes by chance could you dig through the old iteams (aka head shots, aots, singled out. house of 1000 cors. multi extras stuff) for back in the day and sell them. would be a great thing of history to own.

I’m confused-THIS is a new and improved mobile friendly site!? It sucks so bad that I googled Nerdist mobile sucks just to see what popped up. I get nothing but photos in the foreground covering 75% of the screen while the text scrolls under the picture. I’m using a one year old android that gives me no problems anywhere else.

I am working full time in a job that is stifling, but am writing every chance I get to finish my novel (groan, a novelist) but every day at my 30 minute lunch break I sit in my car and eat and listen to the Nerdist podcast to get my inspiration on and a reminder that there are so many great, creative people in the world. Thanks for putting it out there! It really helps me to keep at it.

Hey Chris, looking forward to the continued evolution of the site. We’d love to have you speak at Internet Summit in Raleigh this year (alongside “the Woz”). How do we get in touch with your booking agent to see if the dates and $ could work out? (there are so many pop up speaker agencies these days online, you’re not sure which are officially repping someone). Is repping a real word?

The new site looks beautiful! But I’m having a hard time trying to find the podcasts. The old setup (for the podcasts at least) was a lot clearer and easier to navigate. I’m sure there is some logic behind the new design and this is just be being a Luddite, but it used to be a lot quicker.
Click podcasts, click the desired podcast, read a short intro about each episode, choose episode and listen.
Now, I can’t even find the ‘main page’ for the Nerdist Podcast.

Not a fan of how there is no description of what each podcast is. There use to be a quick description, now it’s just the name. I think that might deter newcomers from clicking on it because they have no idea what it is now.

yey! i hope you get to guest (nerdist podcast) people from the web development community who are largely responsible for, err… advancement in web development. they are plenty bright and plenty funny too! kudos!

I’m far too new to come up with something clever and “inside” to say, but I am enjoying what I’ve seen so far. A friend of mine had me listening to The Nerdist Podcast interviews (Stan Lee and Chris Hadfield) on a road trip to perform in Fernie, and an unrelated friend at work pushed me to check out @midnight after my lunch-hour dose of Daily Show and Colbert Report, so I figured I had to check out more of your work. Little did I know you had formed an empire.
Being an obsessive completionist, I had started at what I assumed was the very beginning of the archives, and had worked my way up to #12, the interview with OK Go. Now that the terrain is changed I can’t seem to find my way to go from #13 on. It’s a minor concern, and maybe a little exploration will get me back there, but the search is taking me away from the soothing sounds of your Professor Frink impressions as I collate and file.
Growth is good, though, always and forever. Hopefully I can find my way around this new landscape.
Cheers!
Jaso

Nerds hate change! NERDS HATE CHANGE! FIX IT, FIX IT!
Thanks for letting us hang in your virtual clubhouse, Chris. The wallpaper may have changed, but hopefully nothing else has.
Seems we can now up/down vote stuff. Can’t wait to see how that works out. Hopefully the troll patrol will get less acknowledgement when we can just silently push them down to the tl;dr section of the comments.
*immediately down votes self*

As a non-tablet or -smartphone user I don’t like it at all. The images are huge and randomly staggered, everything is so large I have to continually scroll, and the page constantly reloads as I do. The text on each link tells me very little about what they lead to, the whole thing just feels like it’s for kids rather than experienced web-savvy users, who surely make up the majority of your user-base.

I know this is a popular trend in “responsive” web design, but I find it unpleasantly ugly, non-intuitive, and unnecessary.

Chris & Team,Great work on the new site. It all looks awesome! I’m so pleased that your passion has become such a viable and successful business. I’ve been intrigued by the evolution of Nerdist in recent years (I only found you guys about 3 years ago – so glad I did!).It’s such a unique entity supported by an excellent team of people – and that’s why it works.
Congratulations!

Hey Chris Hardwick! Long time first time haha. I don’t have social media, so this is the only way I can think to get in touch. New site looks fantastic on mobile – so much better. Just wanted to say, in case you didn’t already know, nerdist got a shout out on Adam Scott and Scott Aukerman’s”U Talkin U2 To Me?” Podcast in episode 10. Thought I’d put it out there. Keep up the great work!

I’m far from a “internet complainer,” but I have to say that this new layout is terrible. Its really hard to read and, especially on the podcasts page, looks really disorganized. The previous design was streamlined, easy to read, and put information and content ahead of gigantic photos. This really turns me off of a site that I was regularly checking out. I’m really disappointed.

Looks great!
One comment is that (at least in Chrome) there’s a menu that pops when you fullscreen a youtube video that forces it into almost a 4×3 viewport, cutting off a third of the video on the edges.